In what has become one of the stranger twists in an already bizarre Governor's race, a bag of uncounted ballots was found in Bridgeport Thursday night.

Republican officials were approached by Democratic operatives and told about the surprise ballot bag, according to Bridgeport GOP Chairman Marc Delmonico.

It adds to the inconsistencies from the Democratic Party in Bridgeport. It just keeps adding to it, said Delmonico. Theres nothing odd about it; theres certainly nothing missing about it, said Ed Maley, a representative for the Democratic Party.

Delmonico said Democrats asked to have several people deputized to count the uncounted ballots, but Republicans objected, claiming that wasn't proper procedure in the vote-counting process.

These ballots are getting extraordinarily heightened scrutiny. Theyre being dealt with in a public fashion, an open public process so that everyone can witness it, said Mark Anastasi, the city attorney for Bridgeport.

Instead the GOP asked police to take custody of the bag of ballots until the matter could be sorted out.

The votes could be pivotal in the race for Governor, in which neither candidate has conceded defeat.

Wednesday, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz declared Democrat Dan Malloy the "unofficial" winner, but numbers released by her office show Republican Tom Foley still leading Malloy by more than 8,000 votes. Those totals do not include any of the vote totals from the City of Bridgeport.

Bridgeport has become the focal point of what has turned into a circus of an election.

A ballot shortage led to long lines on Election Day, and a judge issuing an order to keep polls open until 10 p.m. Tuesday, two hours longer than every other town in the state.

Because of the shortage, many of the votes cast Tuesday were done so on photocopied ballots.

Election officials began counting those ballots just after 5 p.m. Thursday when the new bag of uncounted ballots was discovered.

Bysiewicz said she didn't expect the vote totals from Bridgeport to be submitted to her until Friday at the earliest.

One of the first and most important investigations that Issa should tackle is voter fraud. It's out of hand and we'll never have another honest election or administration until a cheat-proof method is found to conduct these elections.

If the feds won't do it, then we need some brave "Jan Brewers" out there to take it on as a state issue.

Unions or other organizations or parties with vested interest in the outcome should not be allowed to be in charge of voting machines, ballots, bags, or anything else to do with the election.

The VOTE is all we have between us and tyranny...well, that and the 2nd Amendment.

Notice they also never find this kind of stuff when the race is a landslide.

But let it be a tight race, and eventually a box of uncounted ballots always turns up in someone’s car.

There are easy checks and balances to prevent this.

(1) Each ballot should be printed with a unique number and barcode (with modern printing methods, this adds zero to the cost of the ballot).

(2) As the ballot is being handed to a voter, the poll-worker scans the barcode on the ballot into a database. This makes the ballot a “live” ballot, associates a voting timestamp with it, and also records the name/worker-id of the poll-worker that handed out the ballot.

(3) When the voter is done voting, the ballot number is scanned again. This markes the “live” ballot as “completed”, associates another timestamp with the ballot, and records the name/worker-id of the poll-worker that verified the voter placed the ballot into the ballot box.

The voter associated with the ballot would be secret, but there isn’t any rule that says the poll-workers that handed out the ballot, or the polling place the ballot was cast at, needs to be secret.

Simple steps like this would prevent traitors from stealing a bunch of ballots, filling them out in mass, and then “finding them” in the trunk of a car.

I would think that chain of custody rules would already be in place. I don’t see how a “bag of ballots” can EVER be admitted after the fact. I think any precinct that produces a bag of ballots should have all the workers disqualified permanently and police lock down for the next election. If every vote counting is so important, then how can they pretend it’s no big deal to “find” ballots. Somebody needs to go to jail. Want to count your fraudulent votes, mr rat pig? Let someone go to prison for it. See if they keep their mouth shut.

50
posted on 11/05/2010 8:56:31 AM PDT
by ichabod1
(Hail Mary Full of Grace, The Lord Is With Thee...)

"Frankening an election"

Occurs when, several hours or days after an election has ended and ballots have been tallied and votes have been counted and the probability is high that the liberal/Democrat candidate has lost his/her bid for election/re-election, a HUGH bag of 'uncounted' ballots/votes are found *suddenly* "in the back seat or trunk of a car", generally belonging to a liberal/Democrat polling place employee--the name of this election-stealing technique arises from the suspicious incident in the 2008 campaign between Al Franken and Norm Coleman in the state of Minnesota.

(from the Dictionary of Political Corruption, 2010 edition)

51
posted on 11/05/2010 8:58:04 AM PDT
by pillut48
(Israel doesn't have a friend in President Obama...and neither does the USA! (h/t pgkdan))

Any bag found later that is not on the Chain of Custody is simply not counted.

Absolutely! I would have said the ballots need to be destroyed before the lawyers showed up; but the more I think about it, these are evidence of a potential crime - at least criminal negligence. Somebody lost control of them or created them.

55
posted on 11/05/2010 8:59:46 AM PDT
by Never on my watch
(Never let a kid play with matches or run with scissors; and never give a gavel to a Democrat!)

This is one GD thing I DEMAND that the new republican majority do — crack down on voter fraud. Send some people to prison. They’ll clean up their act, if they know they face severe consequences. And frankly, there are not many crimes more serious than this. Election fraud is akin to sedition and treason because it undermines the whole country.

57
posted on 11/05/2010 9:00:16 AM PDT
by ichabod1
(Hail Mary Full of Grace, The Lord Is With Thee...)

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